Profile picture
Ash Sarkar @AyoCaesar
, 19 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter
Quote-tweeting the response, not to instigate a pile on, but because I reckon it’s useful to respond to this visibly. Okay, so, here’s the thing...
Racism isn't the result of a majority vs minority dynamic in Europe or America. It's possible to know this for two main reasons. The first is that since Roman times at least, there's been contact between people we'd now racialise as white & those we'd racialise as non-white.
While there were relations of conquest and enslavement, racial identity (by which I mean phenotypic appearance) wasn't a precondition of being a conqueror or a slave. There was a Roman emperor from Libya (Septimius Severus) - dude spent a lot of time bossing round Hadrian's Wall.
So what can we draw from this? That 'race' wasn't always particularly important in determining access to power. And what's more, racialisation isn't simply a natural response to perceiving physical differences in skin/hair/eyes etc.
I'm gonna skip a lot of stuff cos it's hard to fit a whole millennium in a thread. But the basic gist of it is, we see race emerge as a technology of governance - i.e. an organising principle of power and social control - due to a specific confluence of historical factors.
These are - colonization, Westwards Ottoman expansion, Transatlantic slave trade, the Iberian expulsions 1492-1609, the breakdown of feudalism and the crisis of Christendom represented by the Reformation.
Why's this important? Well, it shows us that racism isn't mere bigotry. It operates at both the local and the transnational level. It has a relationship to capital and creates 'exploitable' bodies. It can be instrumentalised to prop up, invent or dismantle existing social orders.
It also shows us that racism has always had an international dimension - there are geopolitical and geo-economic functions, which continue to shape world systems to this very day.
It's worth saying at this point, that racism has proved a far-more flexible technology than is often understood. The Irish in the 19th Century, according to dominant pseudo-scientific logic, were racialised as distinct from the British ruling class.
Like, they were literally portrayed as being closer to the African (whose enslavement was a precondition of their blackness), and so deserving of their subjugation. Even the English working classes were sometimes thought to be an inferior race.
THE DIFFERENCE IS that the Irish could assimilate into whiteness vis a vis participation in political and social institutions, particularly in the American context.
And this settler colony context is really important for thinking about our second main reason why racism isn't just a majority vs minority phenomenon.
If racism was about majority dominance of minority groups, colonialism could literally have never happened. Apartheid? Couldn't happen. Jim Crow? Snap. White-minority Rhodesia? Fuck outta here.
The fact is @apmjee, white people tend to be treated with a great deal of deference in most parts of the world, due to the enduring power of colonial hierarchies, continued global inequalities, and internalized racism on the part of the formerly colonized.
I'll give you an example - when travelling to India and Bangladesh with my Asian mum and my white stepdad, he's automatically whisked off to first-class lounges or straight through security by overzealous airport workers, while we're left behind (despite also being UK nationals).
In general, in settler colonies, white people will enjoy a higher standard of living and access to capital than the formerly colonized.
Take South Africa, for example. Just 0.9% of Whites live below the poverty line. That's compared to, 63.2% of Black people, 37% of Coloured people and 6.9% of Indian/Asian people.
Racism isn't mere distinction (the observation of difference), nor is it mere disposition (bigoted sentiment) - it's dispossession, on a global scale, played out in locally specific ways.
I'm gonna wrap up here but tl;dr reverse racism isn't a thing, but capitalism *is* and that's why we need leftist solutions to poverty and racism a$ap.
Missing some Tweet in this thread?
You can try to force a refresh.

Like this thread? Get email updates or save it to PDF!

Subscribe to Ash Sarkar
Profile picture

Get real-time email alerts when new unrolls are available from this author!

This content may be removed anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member and get exclusive features!

Premium member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year)

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!